Category: News

CAHR 2023: Interview videos with leaders in Canada’s response to HIV

Every year the Canadian Association for HIV Research (CAHR) organizes Canada’s leading HIV research conference, where researchers, service providers, people living with HIV, policy-makers and advocates come together to exchange knowledge, share their work and learn about advances in HIV research. CATIE attended CAHR 2023 in Quebec City to tap into the latest discussions and debates in Canada’s HIV response. Learn more about what people were saying at the conference in the videos below. Canada’s progress on its HIV targets CATIE caught up with leaders in Canada’s response to HIV and asked them how Canada performed on its 2020 targets...

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Visual voice: Incorporating story with wellness

“We know the hepatitis C virus is a silent, often sneaky virus that wreaks havoc in the liver, is detectable through screening and is cured through oral medication in a matter of weeks. But our rates are rising because there is no personal engagement. We need culturally connected awareness resources to make an impact.”  -Indigenous Knowledge Keeper   While collaborating with an Indigenous community in Alberta to streamline hepatitis C pathways to care, I had the opportunity to take part in the co-creation of a culturally connected liver health awareness film. I was inspired to action when this resource was...

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Organizing our grief: A collaboration in response to the overdose crisis

Organizing Our Grief: A Collaboration in Response to the Overdose Crisis is a free online publication that aims to capture and communicate a mobile public artwork and event series called Wish You Were Here, Wish Here Was Better, that made space for people impacted by the ongoing overdose and toxic drug crisis. Central to WYWH, WHWB was a mural by artist Les Harper, entitled ekisâkihitin (“I love you” in Cree), that features the images of 19 people from the Peel region who died due to overdoses. We published Organizing Our Grief as part of Living with Concepts, a series of...

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Remembering Joanne Lindsay

I was deeply saddened to learn the news of Joanne Lindsay’s passing from cancer on July 15, 2023, surrounded by her husband Hamza, son Charlie and daughter Chiku. Joanne was first elected to CATIE’s board of directors in 2017 and served as its treasurer for the last five years. She was a passionate community leader and contributed to the governance of multiple community-based organizations and programs, as well as being involved as a researcher, educator, mentor and community activist. I know that her former colleagues at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, the Ontario AIDS Network, the MAP Centre for Urban...

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New Canadian hepatitis C estimates tell us how far we’ve come (and how far we have to go)

Canada has joined countries around the world in committing to eliminate hepatitis C as a public health threat by 2030. However, how do we know if we’re on track to reach that goal and how do we measure our progress along the way?   Fortunately, the World Health Organization established targets in its Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis, which have been adapted to the Canadian context by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). These targets lay out a path to elimination with concrete objectives, that include a 90% reduction in new hepatitis C infections by 2030, as...

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Progress toward viral hepatitis elimination in Canada: Holding governments accountable

On May 11, 2023, Action Hepatitis Canada (AHC) released its Progress Toward Viral Hepatitis Elimination in Canada 2023 Report. This is an update on the 2021 report and provides an analysis of each province and territory’s progress toward eliminating viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030, a goal set by the World Health Organization (WHO). With a cure for hepatitis C and a vaccine for hepatitis B, this is an ambitious yet realistic goal. Two years after the initial report, we wanted to see what progress had been made in adopting person-centred policies through a health equity lens,...

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